Goro didn’t look happy to see us all helping prepare the food. He gave me an especially affronted glare. I was supposed to be the enemy, the invader he was here to defeat.
Putting FM in charge of diplomacy had clearly been the right decision.
When we finished the food preparation, several kitsen carried away the remaining waste and cooking implements, and Kauri returned with another kitsen riding a second, smaller saucer.
“This is Juno,” she told me. “One of our lorekeepers. He has offered to dine with you, though he will wait until after the senate meeting to impart knowledge.”
“I am sorry this is necessary,” Juno said, “but there are some among us who find our lorekeeping to be superfluous or even threatening. It was only the will and continued patronage of the Most Honored One Who Was Not King that sustained our order. We do not wish to go against the will of the senate or attract the ire of—”
“Humans!” Goro bellowed from the head of one of the large tables. “It is time to begin to feast. I will not offer you welcome! You come as invaders, and so we give you the greeting fit for those who dare think to conquer the Den of Everlasting Light Which Laps Gently upon the Shores of Time! A full belly to make you sluggish, so that my champion may more easily pierce you with the sword!”
“Well that’s disturbing,” FM muttered beside me.
“At least he’s upfront about it,” Alanik added.
“Let us feast!” Goro shouted, and the kitsen all echoed these last words with their fists raised in the air.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a grave tactical error by dining with these creatures. I thought we were doing the right thing by being diplomatic and trying to prove we weren’t here to conquer them. But now I worried they would discover some weakness they might use against us.
“Juno,” I said as one of the kitsen brought me a small plate—it must have been an oversized serving platter to them—piled high with fish and nuts. “I know you don’t want to share your knowledge with us until the senate agrees to it, but may I ask if any of this food is poisonous to humans?”
“Certainly,” Juno said. “The photophores of the flatfish are mildly venomous, but those have been removed. Our records show that humans ate most of our foods, and indeed put a great strain on our resources, trying to export some of our most prized delicacies for their own gain. To answer your question, the only foods we eat that would be poisonous to you are a few varieties of berry and some of our summer shellfish, and none of those have been offered to you this day. Make no mistake, Goro means to kill you, but he will only do so with senate permission and in the way that is most advantageous to him.”
Over at Goro’s table, I heard him comparing his fish to a worthy foe slain in battle. That seemed like a stretch to me, but I’d once heard Spensa muttering something that sounded a lot like “fear the wrath of my very soft socks” on requisition day, so she probably would have approved. I wasn’t sure how fighting one of us with a sword could be advantageous to him, but clearly he had some kind of endgame in mind.
FM poked at her own fish, then took a bite. “This is delicious.”
“Eh,” Nedd said, settling down cross-legged on the sand by Kimmalyn. “It’s a little fishy.”
FM blinked at him. “It is literally fish.”
“Right,” Nedd said. “But…fishy fish.”
“Totally,” Catnip said. “I hate it when my food adjectives its own noun.”
“Exactly,” Nedd said.
“It’s like the Saint says,” Kimmalyn added. “You are what you eat.”
“Hey, look!” Sadie said. “There are boats out there!” She pointed out onto the water, beyond the waves. The noise from the ocean was fainter this far up on the beach. And out on the blue-green expanse that seemed to go on and on forever until it melded with the sky…scud, she was right. There were ships out there. Sailing vessels that couldn’t have been much longer than a meter or two, bobbing up and down in the waves.
“I understand the basics of how boats work,” I said. “But how do they do that? How do they sail out there on all that water, without worrying that it’s going to swallow them up?”
“Sometimes it does,” Juno said. “The water is dangerous, especially for sailors who are caught in a sudden storm. As for how they brave it—how do you fly into the blackness of space? It seems just as unknowable to me, and a great deal more vast.”